John J. Hentschel, CRE Presented Award For Work in Serbia

John J. Hentschel, CRE received the 2011 James Felt Creative Counseling Award for his work with USAID’s Municipal Economic Growth Activity (MEGA) in the Republic of Serbia an initiative that, in part, helped local governments foster economic growth and employment by redeveloping and reusing well located surplus military properties. As a result of a bureaucracy with disposition authority and responsibilities dispersed among multiple Ministries, a nascent real estate market with little transparency or data, and rudimentary valuation procedures that ignored the productive capacity of complex properties, the Municipalities’ efforts to obtain the properties had been stymied. Applying the interdisciplinary skills of a Counselor, he crafted an innovative “Win-Win” model to expand national wealth that advocated cooperation, coupled the interests of the Military and Municipalities, leveraged resources, enhanced the value of the surplus military properties and cultivated private capital investment for their economic and physical redevelopment.